OK. Let's Examine this. Did he "net" $4.5 billion.

In April 2001, he leased the property and the buildings were 97% rented. He had four buildings and retails space

Number One and Two World Trade Center (the Twin Towers), Four and Five World Trade Center (two nine-story office buildings) and approximately 400,000 square feet of retail space.

https://www.panynj.gov/port-authority/en/press-room/press-release-archives/2001_press_releases/port_authority_toleaseworldtradecentertosilversteinpropertiesinc.html

So he has successful income generating buildings.

Then 9/11 happens and suddenly he is not generating income. This is going to affect his profit. He won't have income generating buildings until 2013

He also needs to build a new building. This will affect his profit.

One World Trade aka the Freedom Tower opened in Nov 2014. It cost 3.9 billion dollars.

4 World Trade opens in Nov 2013. It cost 1.67 billion dollars

https://web.archive.org/web/20150919170754/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203920204577191371172049652

Then he makes an insurance claim (fraud) netting $4.5Bn.

In 2007 he got the final $2 billion of a total of $4.55 billion https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20070527/story/100022003/silverstein,-insurers-settle-wtc-claims

Nearly six years of legal wrangling over the World Trade Center insurance claim ended last week with seven insurers agreeing to pay $2 billion to WTC leaseholder Silverstein Properties Inc.

#Accounting

So did he actually profit at all? Did he net even a single dollar?

Let's do some accounting.* We need to consider the credits and debits

#Debits $3.2 billion from the original billion lease. He didn't "buy" the towers. He leased them. So these means after 9/11 he was paying about $100+ million in rent for a giant hold in the ground.

$? billion 12/13 years of loss of income if 9/11 never happened. If rent is over 100 million a year, and the building in profitable than income would be something like 110 million a year, so this would be like 1.2 billion dollars

$?? million legal fees. 6 year battle with insurance companies would probably be multiple tens of millions of dollars

$350 million leasing fees. Just building the buildings in not enough, you need to lure tenants. They spent a ton of money to do this, helping tenants build out their office and in the case of Conde Nast, the anchor tenant of the Freedom Tower, they bought out the last 5 years of the existing lease. this number is part of the 3.9 building below, so we can ignore it

Building 1 $3.9 billion Building 4 $1.7 billion.

#Credits

$4.5 billion

So has he made a profit? Where? How? It seems like he gained a bunch more expenses.

. . . *I'm sure this is super simplified.